e enough, when they started on once more, Saint Rigobert still
singing softly, Pierre, who kept glancing back, saw the goose waddling
slowly at his master's heels. So the queer little procession came into
Gernicour; and every one stopped along the streets with open mouths,
wondering to see them pass. At last they reached the Bishop's house. And
there Rigobert ceased his singing, and turning to the goose stroked his
feathers gently and said:--

"Good friend, thou hast been faithful. Thou shalt be rewarded. Aye,
ruffle up thy feathers, good goose, for they shall never be plucked
from thee, nor shalt thou be cooked for food. Thou art my friend from
to-day. No pen shall hold thee, but thou shalt follow me as thou wilt."

And the Saint kept his promise. For after that the goose lived with him
in happiness and peace. They would take long walks together in the
fields about Gernicour. They made visits to the sick and the sorrowful.
Indeed, wherever Saint Rigobert went the goose followed close at his
heels like a dog. Even when Rigobert went again to see the Governor of
Rheims, the goose waddled all the way there and back along the crooked
road over part of which he had gone that first time in little Pierre's
arms. And how the Governor did laugh as he stood in his door and watched
the strange pair disappear down the road.

"He could not have been very hungry after all," the Governor thought,
"or I should never have seen that goose again." Which shows how little
even a Governor knows about some things.

More than this, whenever Rigobert went to hold service in his little
church the goose escorted him there also. But he knew better than to go
inside. He would wait by the porch, preening his feathers in the
sunshine and snapping bugs in the grass of the churchyard until his dear
master came out. And then he would escort him back home again. He was a
very well-mannered goose.

But dear me! All this time I have left poor little Pierre standing with
a quivering chin outside the Bishop's door, hopeless of a dinner. But it
all came right, just as the Bishop had said it would. I must tell you
about that. For when Rigobert returned from church that same day feeling
very faint and hungry indeed, after the long walk and the excitement of
the goose-hap, Pierre came running out to meet him with a smiling face.

"Oh Father, Father!" he cried. "We are to have a dinner, after all. Come
quick, I am so hungry I cannot wait! The village folk h